Sound Sculpture at the Gravity Discovery Centre, Gingin, Western Australia
Time Coils 1 & 2 | Mark Cain
The Gravity Discovery Centre: www.gdc.asn.au

Scale is always a challenge to art. For years I've been exploring the sound potential inherent in industrial plastic tubing or polypipe, the kind used by plumbers, electricians, agrarians and budding high jumpers. In the early days a colleague and I flirted with the fantasy of playing Perth's underground sewerage system - a bold and avante-garde, if somewhat improbable notion! Nevertheless, the fascination with designing vast or outsized instruments has remained with me. In this project I have the opportunity to work with a 1.2 kilometer coiled length of 110mm diameter polyethylene pipe [certainly enough tubing to service the sewerage needs of a small housing precinct].

In its simplest conception, a tube of this length acts as a kind of time capsule. A noise made at one end of the tube will, travelling at the speed of sound [nominally 330 meters/second], take just under 4 seconds to be heard at the other end of the tube. So in effect, at the far end of the tube, one is listening back to the past. The resultant acoustic delay elegantly illustrates the notion of travelling backward in time and has parallels with the ripples made by a stone thrown into a still pond. In physics there are many examples of "cause and delayed effect", including, of course, gravity waves themselves. To accentuate these delay effects, I have located along the length of this vast coil a series of regularly spaced tiny microphones that will pickup and transmit to amplified speakers sounds as they pass through the tube. The listener will hear multiple repeats as his or her original sound source 'pingpongs' from one speaker to the next in a series of graduated delays, finishing with the original unamplified sound at the other end of the coil. A 'miniature' version of this instrument comprising a 200 meter coiled length of 65mm polyethylene tubing will be housed as an accompanying exhibit inside the GDC. Its shorter delay cycle offers an interesting point of comparison with the larger instrument. The two coils can be 'played' interactively or independently of each other.

As a child I'd put my ear to a conch shell and listen with amazement to that mysterious 'sound of the sea'...now I can put my ear at one end of an unfathomable hollow coil and listen with equal incredulity into the past.

Specifications:

Time Coil 1
materials: 110mm [pn 8] polyethylene pipe
length: 1.2 kilometres [coiled]

Time Coil 2
materials: 65mm polyethylene pipe Time Coil 2:
length: 200 metres [coiled]

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AC/PVC
Doing more for Music than Bach did for Plumbing

In the three brief years of AC/PVC's existence [1987-1990], the group made quite an impact on the Perth contemporary music scene. Founded by Mark Cain and Peter Keelan to present a new work for the 1987 Evos New Music Series, AC/PVC was in every sense, an experiment. Cain, a reedman and Keelan, a specialist in Andean flutes and panpipes, collaborated to build a virtual orchestra of instruments made from pvc plumbing and electrical paraphanalia, ABS airconditioning ducting and other industrial plastics.

Why PVC pipe? From a musical perspective it is like an analogue of the bamboo, wooden or metal tubing used in conventional instrument making around the world. It's recycleable, relatively cheap, versatile and comes with a seemingly endless range of auxilliary fittings. Its essential cylindrical shape is the core shape of many wind and percussion instruments both past and present. But perhaps, most importantly for AC/PVC, the imposing sculptural shapes of our instruments added an otherworldly, theatrical dimension that captivated audiences. Here were bits of humble plastic pipe transformed. The architecture and sound pallette of these instruments confounded their origins...and it was the audience inner-child that revelled in this musical playground of new possibilities and imaginings.

AC/PVC staged four major concerts events during its tenure. The opening two Evos concerts, AC/PVC in Concert, were staged at the Princess May Theatre, Fremantle, November 6 & 7, 1987. Cain & Keelan were supported by Indian percussionist, Raman, and contemporary dancer/choreographer, Jean Tally. The second, New Executions, comprised a week long season at the historic Roundhouse, Fremantle, April 5 -10, 1988, in collaboration with Still Moves Dance Company and percussionist, Ron Reeves. The third concert series, Feats Underground, was held at the Fly By Night Club, Fremantle, September 29 to October 2, 1998. This was an augmented group with Reeves, singer, Kerry Fletcher, percussionist, Aiden D'Adhemar and Broken Hill painter, Clark Barrett, creating real time Hokusai canvasses and Blue Poles revisions. The concert stage also featured a transparent waterproof tent replete with overhead sprinkler system. The musicians performed the finale, semi naked in clear plastic raincoats weathering the deluge of water [and light effects] ricocheting from pvc percussion. The final concert, AC/PVC at the Ozone, December 9, 1990 presented an augmented lineup with members of Nova Ensemble: David Pye, Niel Craig, Paul Tanner, Amanda Dean and trombonist, Andrew Raymond.

AC/PVC held artist in residency projects in Albany/Denmark, 1988; Wanneroo [Limestone Connection] 1989, Northam 1988 & 1989. Toured the Pilbara & Kimberley, Pipe Dreams Tour, 1989. Also featured artists at the Darwin Bouganvillea Festival, 1990. Between 1987 & 1990 AC/PVC performed in many, many schools and communities around the state.

"In all my long years of concert going, I have rarely come across a group like AC/PVC, who not only clearly derive immense pleasure from their performance but succeed in communicating that to their listeners"
Neville Cohn, The Australian, July 1989

"...an enegetic and rhythmically vital performance"
Lindsay Vickery, The West Australian, September 1988

"In the skilled and imaginative hands of Peter Keelan, Mark Cain and Ron Reeves, the orchestra of PVC tubing has an astonishing range of mood and sound"
Terry Owen, The West Australian, April 1988

"It was wonderful array of imaginative sound by three musicians who were as entertaining as they were technically skilled"
David Hough, The Australian, April 1988

Visit Peter Keelan's website

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